Tie rod housings of the type described at the beginning are used as components of motor vehicle steering mechanisms and are subject to the highest safety-relevant general conditions because of their special intended use. These general conditions are dictated by the motor vehicle manufacturers and are divided in the state of the art, e.g., into the safety classes A, B, C and D, where the tie rod housing described at the beginning are subject to the highest safety level D.
In order to guarantee the required process safety of safety level D within the framework of predetermined loads, the possibility of transmission of preset static and dynamic forces as well as of impact stresses is necessary.
To meet the said criteria, tie rod housing blanks comprising a tie rod head and a shaft element are preformed within the framework of a forging process and are brought to their final shape predetermined by the vehicle manufacturer by a subsequent mechanical machining, so that additional components such as seals and bearing components can be mounted in the tie rod head. The entire manufacture comprising the forging process and the subsequent machining process is extremely cost-intensive, and attempts have recently been made to reduce the processing time for the subsequent machining operations by cold forging operations. Cold forging as a manufacturing process is, on the other hand, again relatively complicated and cost-intensive, so that the overall manufacturing price advantages of the alternative mode of manufacture that can be achieved cannot necessarily be considered to be great.